Salt
by Imyoshi
Summary: Riddles. Games. Tongue-twisters. All of these childish games required a thinking-out-of-the-box approach. To prove a point to a stubborn Weiss Schnee that these fun activities were, in fact, not a waste of time, Jaune Arc challenged her to solve the hardest puzzle. What he didn't expect was her resolve to beat him at a silly child's game. Yang Xiao Long loved every second of it.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Salt**

 **By: Imyoshi**

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled—psh! Darn it!"

Weiss Schnee glared at the silly scene before her.

Jaune Arc and Yang Xiao Long were playing a game where sentences read one way but sounded different or had perverse difficulty when spoken. They called them tongue-twisters. So far the two amused themselves, trying to one-up the other on difficulty. A foolish activity if someone asked her. A waste of time. Dinner wasn't meant to act like children, but fuel their bodies for the upcoming hours. Harsh, maybe, but she preferred conversation over mindless games.

The two dolts thought differently.

"Okay, Arc!" Yang challenged, stabbing her food with her reliable fork dripping in mouthwatering juice. "I got one for you! How can a clam cram in a clean cream can? Beat that!"

He tried once, twice, and thrice before managing the phrase with all the confidence of someone who bunked with Nora Valkyrie. "Okay, my turn. This one's a toughie. She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells on the seashore, I'm sure she sells seashore shells."

"Oh? Not bad, not bad, but watch and learn." Yang only failed two times before managing the phrase, grinning with evil glee. "Prepare yourself! How much wood—?"

 _Slam_!

"Enough! Both of you!" Weiss huffed with both of her the blond's eyes widened. Her frown deepened. "Can you stop with these childish games already?"

Yang quickly recovered and smirked at the Ice Queen. "Aw? Why, princess? Can't do them? I know they're hard, but with a few lessons even you'll be able to say them in no time."

"I don't need lessons. My pronunciation is on point, thank you very much." Weiss leaned back while dabbing a napkin on her lips, tone clipped. "Besides, they provide nothing beneficial. If you're going to prioritize your time in any way, you should read books. They actually teach something useful and have answers. Unlike those silly games."

"Book smarts aren't everything, Weiss." Jaune rebutted, mildly shocking Yang. "Take riddles, for example! No book's gonna tell you the answer to a riddle. That's thinking out-of-the-box! And thinking out-of-the-box is important, too! That's called street smarts."

Weiss paused. She quietly folded her napkin, regarding his statement with contempt for all but four seconds. "Riddles are nothing but childish games meant for the easily distracted. They're not stimulating or challenging whatsoever."

Yang pouted at that, wondering what crawled up her butt, but shook her head and allowed for Weiss to control the flow of the conversation while chewing into her steak. Once the princess got her claws into something, the fun train usually ended. That was until she noticed the unmatched gleam in Vomit Boy's eyes, like an apex predator on the hunt. Whatever he wanted to say shook him to his core.

"You're wrong."

Yang choked on her meal. Weiss opened one eye to glare at the blond. Jaune smirked nonchalantly. The table quickly grew cold with the temperature dropping. He only made things more interesting by scooping a forkful of mash potatoes with that devilish grin growing. When he licked his lips, the silver spoon dropped.

The Dust Heiress narrowed her eyes. Challenging book smarts? A bold move, one her numerous tutors taught her never to do. Either Arc had a very promising generalization to dismiss advancement or none whatsoever.

Still, she humored him. "Oh?"

He didn't disappoint. "Riddles aren't childish games? They can be very challenging and head scratching if told the right one. They teach one thing books cannot, and that's common sense."

Her entire body stilled. Common sense? Ludicrous. Books—real books—taught that. Childish games didn't. Literature explained the ins-and-outs of everyday life. Games only delayed studying and reading said titles. Ruby and her _Dust for Dummies_ attested to that. If anything that was the personification of _common sense_ , not those troublesome jokes or thinking out-of-box tomfoolery.

Time to prove a point.

She scoffed, challenging his theory. "Please, if you can give me one riddle that I can't solve, I'll admit to being wrong. Just one."

"Just one?" Jaune laughed, accepting the challenge. Yang watched with acute interest, stuffing food in her mouth at a brisk pace. "Good, because I only need one."

His opponent frowned. Just one? Confident one, wasn't he? Fearless in the face of overwhelming odds. Did Jaune not know of her extensive tutoring as a child? Hadn't this Heiress made that evident from day one with her encyclopedic knowledge? Whelp! If not, then now was as good as a chance as any.

"Do your worst, Arc."

His grin turned lecherous, filled with daunting spirit. A shadow stretched across his person. Must be his Aura or Semblance, or perhaps an overactive imagination after being subjected to those silly games of theirs? Had to be. Whatever! She was more than ready to make Jaune eat his words.

"Two coins equal thirty cents, and one of them isn't a nickel. What are they?"

A mundane riddle.

Weiss preemptively had her mouth opened to answer but shut it after her brain refused to come up with the solution. What? Annoyance gripped at her, and actual brainpower came into play, but for the life of her she couldn't figure it out. Two coins? Thirty cents? One of them wasn't a nickel? No. No such combination existed between all the current manufactured coins.

Her eyes narrowed with her teeth clicking in frustration. "There's no solution to that riddle."

Jaune simply leaned back, holding back a chuckle. "But there is."

"You're making things up now."

"Nope! Arc's honor."

Oh? Weiss blinked hard. He played the Arc's honor card. That meant business—he meant business. Very well. Give her a few minutes, and the answer would inevitably come to her. Perhaps she missed a coin? Forgot a one or zero somewhere? A miscalculation due to her eagerness to reply instantly and mercilessly, nonetheless, she had this game set-and-match.

A few minutes pass by with Jaune and Yang leaning over the table, watching emotions flicker across their friend's face. First curiosity, then contemplation, followed by grumbling and ending with a grunt unfit for a Schnee. Without another word, Weiss got up from the table and headed for the library, determined to find the answer to his riddle in either the books or the online interweb.

Her footsteps echoed louder than anything else in the loud Mess Hall.

"Oh!" Yang grinned with all her teeth showing. "This is gonna be good."

Jaune watched Yang stand up and stalk after the Dust Heiress out the Mess Hall with an endless hunger in those predatory eyes on hers. Their dinners remained unfinished, half-full, forgotten like yesterday's thought. He wondered, if possibly, that maybe he opened up Pandora's Box?

...

 _Page-flip_!

"Why. Can't. I. Find. It."

Book after book, page after page, and still nothing! Gah! Weiss almost tossed the book right then and there. Instead, she stubbornly closed her latest book, gripping the edge of the cover with unbreakable resolve. A sigh threatened to escape her, but she held back. Sighing showed a sign of fatigue. She wouldn't dare show Jaune he managed to offset her, even if he wasn't anywhere nearby, and Yang had left hours ago. No one but her remained in the library, a setting sun her only companion.

Once she figured this riddle out— _and she would_ —all would be right with the world.

Until then, her quest continued.

Biting her lips, she added another book to the ever-growing tower of books she flipped through. Once it required her to stand on the edge of her tippie-toes, things changed. Unquestionably, the answer remained hidden in the text, but this read each line business of Remnant economics was getting her nowhere. A different approach was in order.

Shuffling around the library, she hoped a book about coin history might fall upon her lap, but every so often her sights focused on the row of nearby computer terminals. Their blue lulling screen taunted her with sweet, tantalizing words. A few measly clicks and everything coin related would be at the tip of her fingers. Such glorious technology, but no. That felt like crossing a line, cheating as it were. Weiss Schnee did not cheat, and she wouldn't start now.

Especially not for the blond dolt of Team JNPR!

Finding a book about ancient coins, she ripped the record off the bookshelf and sat down at the nearest desk, opening straight to the index page. Her eyes scanned over the words, absorbing all redundant information in regards to pricing. A fruitless endeavor. Her eyes quickly grew tired, losing vigor as her body began to sag. Attention span waned. Lines became blurred. Focus shot. Weiss only stopped herself from falling asleep because parchment made for an uncomfortable pillow.

Groaning, she rubbed the sand out of her eyes, using one elbow to keep her head up while her other hand mindlessly flipped through the pages. When she couldn't find the strength to concentrate anymore, her eyes searched for the computer console again, attracted to the blue light with the sun's shine gone to the horizon. Monitors beeped in machine language, calling out to her.

She _humphed_ , looking down at the book with contempt.

Her eyes bounced back to the terminals and her resolve shifted. Well, Weiss never specified what kind of book and the cyber web contained an archive of near-infinite knowledge. A few minutes on the computer couldn't hurt. Just a webpage or two and nothing more.

Then right back to reading!

A few hours later, a girl slaved away at a screen well into the late hours of the night.

 _Click_! _Click_! _Click_!

Weiss Schnee gritted her teeth, what began as an ordinary search to prove the Arc wrong, turned into a personal vendetta against the leader, and it painfully showed with the three cups of coffee beside the terminal monitor she currently occupied. Hair frizzled. Body shaking. Eyes bloodshot. Weiss looked repulsive as her endless searching came up with nothing but dead ends and cold leads. Her only companion was the computer's glowing screen, providing both support and luminosity in the quiet library. That and the cranky librarian waiting for her to finish up so she could go home, but she didn't matter.

Nothing mattered except for finding what two coins equaled thirty cents, but one of them wasn't a nickel.

Opening up a webpage, she quickly scanned each line of text with ferocity. _Thud_! Her head hit the keyboard. Not another false lead! Crumpets! Why was this eating away at her so much? So what if Jaune knew something she didn't, it wasn't the end of the world, was it?

 _Book smarts aren't everything, Weiss._

No!

Her head shot up, breathing heavily. This Schnee wouldn't give the foolish boy the chance to make a mockery out of her. Books had the answers for everything, and if they didn't, then someone else did, and they put it into books! Street smarts, or whatever silliness Jaune and Yang called them, did not merit squat! They certainly weren't going to be her undoing. Sooner or later she'd find the answer to this silly riddle of his, even if she had to spend all night searching through out-dated archives and poorly managed computer sites.

Snickerdoodles! She required another cup of coffee.

...

 _Slam_!

A heavy book slammed down on the table Jaune and Yang were playing cards on, startling one blond and not the other. Their eyes traveled up the spin of the book, following the flawless skin attached, and ended up staring at the blood-shot eyes of a special snowflake. If they looked close enough, a twitch appeared to have taken over her right eye, yet nothing beat the bloodthirsty smile of hers.

"Uh? Hey, Weiss?" Yang greeted, immune to her creepy Aura. She squinted at the bags underneath her teammate's eyes. "Did you stay up all night?"

Weiss ignored Yang entirely, focused solely on the Fearless Leader of Team JNPR. "I've solved your ridiculous riddle!"

"Riddle? What riddle?" Jaune echoed before Yang swiftly kicked him underneath the table. "Oh! Right, right! The riddle! Well, let's hear it."

No.

Weiss wasn't going to reveal the answer without monologuing first! All the greats of history monologued when proven right! She earned that much, leaning toward him with twitchy movements may or may not be related to her high intake of coffee and coffee-related supplements.

She pinched her fingers tight, leaning closer with each word. "At first I was _this_ close to conceding defeat, but I kept at it and found the answer! And now I know the answer! What makes thirty cents, but one of the coins isn't a nickel?" Weiss edged forward and produced a quarter and underlined a line of text. "A quarter and a rarely minted copper piece with the face's eyes dented closed from a manufacturer error, worth exactly five cents. Ha!"

The well-rested, clear-thinking leader blinked at her feral smirk, sliding a tentative stare over to the quiet Yang. She shrugged. Perfect. Sliding his sights back to the crazed girl, he stood up and shook his head, holding back a smile in place of a timid frown. Anything less might scare the girl.

"Uh? What's the word Ruby uses? Oh yeah. Nope! Nope!" Jaune gently closed the book and poked Weiss on the hand. "The correct answer is a quarter and a nickel."

She expected him to backtrack! No siree, Arc! "Ah-ha! No! You said one of them wasn't a nickel!"

"Yes, the other one is. It's a riddle, Weiss."

Weiss prepared to poke Jaune in the nose, ready to call out his lies and bluffs, but her smirk dropped, along with her remaining sanity. Her train of thinking stopped, crashed into the iceberg of dementia. A quarter and a nickel, but—no! No, no, no! That couldn't be? Surely there had to be a mistake, some loophole she could exploit to come out on top? Anything!

She found none.

Her voice left her. A whole night wasted in the library. All because of some feverish riddle! What? How! Why— _arg_! A cord in her snapped, and she redirected her woozy eyes at the mute Arc. Aura, whatever remained after using it to stay awake way past her limits, beckoned to her call.

Left with no other option to savage her wounded pride, she used her remaining strength to shove Jaune back but ended up using him as a support beam as her lackluster strength proved naught. Still didn't stop her from trying to tip his tall stature into his chair with her weight, but it only looked funny from Yang and his perspective. When she finally gave up, she snorted with her arms crossed, wobbling.

"Fine, you win. I was wrong. Happy now?"

"Peachy." Jaune laughed, sitting back down with innocence. "See! Books can't teach you how to think outside-the-box. That's something you pick up from games. How else are you going to win? You have a lot to learn, Weiss."

"Yes, you're right. I do have a lot to learn." Weiss flipped her hair and fixed him an impassive, but sleepy glare. Her last bits of sanity contorted into a thoughtful pout. "And you're going to teach me."

"Huh?"

Maybe it was her sleep-deprived mind or the ten cups of extra-potent coffee she drank throughout the mind-numbing night, but she sat directly on his lap, preventing him from escaping. If any rational thought-process remained working, it certainly had other places to be.

"You're not leaving my side until I learn everything about riddles and games, and you're going to be my book. I refuse to lack knowledge of any subject. No negotiations. No compromises."

Jaune cooled. Having her on his lap, using him as her personal pillow, rushed the blood in his veins. His heart thumped loudly, beating against his chest like a raging storm, and there wasn't a chance in hell she didn't feel it with her face pressed up so firmly. Lucky for him, Weiss running on fumes meant her senses were all diluted. Best to save face and avoid any sticky situations before they manifested.

"Okay, I can do that, but I think you need to lie down on your bed first."

She frowned but nodded dumbly before wrapping her arms around his neck, burrowing like a stubborn caterpillar. "Carry me then."

He remained frozen with the way Weiss had her arms wrapped so tightly around her neck. He considered helping her walk back to her room, but the tiny princess was already resting comfortably against his body, out like a light. Across from him, a flash went off, and he found the culprit smiling behind her Scroll, grin beating that of a Cheshire's cat.

"I think I have my new Dustmas photo! I can't wait to make Dustmas cards."

"Weiss is going to kill you, you know?"

Yang grinned, shaking the Scroll. "I'm not the one in the photo."

He paused, frowned, and kept his voice dreadfully neutral. "Yang, give me the Scroll."

"Um? Let me think about that. Oh yeah! Nope!"

"Yang!"

Jaune never managed to grab her arm. She was long gone by the time he dared to move with Weiss snuggling up to his body, probably for warmth. Sighing, he looked down at the snoring girl, wishing he sat near a wall to bang his head in frustration. Once that picture got out, he was a dead man.

In hindsight, purely _common sense_ talking here, he should've seen Yang's trickster motive a-mile-away.

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 **Author Notes:** A concept my buddy **Mallobaude** and I came up with randomly. Hate it, love it, or bake it into a pie, it doesn't matter.


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